Immersion case drags on
Last year Sony lost its court case against Immersion Corp, a U.S technology firm. The law suit was filed over the rights to use force feedback technologies in Sony Playstation peripherals. Sony was ordered to pay a quarterly fee to immersion in return for using the technology.
In September last year Sony were ordered to pay $82 milliion dollars to Immersion for infringing on their patent.
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Sony had called in a defense witness in the four year battle, a former Immersion consultant, Craig Thorner. Mr.Thorner's arguments relating to the concealment of evidence whilst he was working with Immersion were thrown out of court. The ex-employee was said to have received $150,000 in royalties from Sony, and the judge ruled that Mr.Thorner would therefore be likely to be biased towards the manufacturer.
At some point Sony are going to have to settle the patent argument by coming to an agreement with Immersion. Microsoft settled out of court and now pay a license fee to Immersion for use of the force feedback technology in their controllers.
